"The Thing Around Your Neck" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche is a collection of short stories about people from different parts of Nigeria. The stories speak of love, family, relationships, friendships as well as about violence and faith.
What I found interesting about this book, as well as most of the author's books in general, is how similar Nigerians and the Nigerian society is similar to Indians and the Indian society. One of the most striking similarities is the deep reliance on religion as a means to solve their problems. Just like most Indians, Nigerians also seem to be deeply religious and seem to consider God and prayers and the many pointless customs associated with religions to be a way to solve their problems.
Another similarity was their tendency of wanting to leave their home country and move to the US (or any Western nation) for a "better life" (and resorting to unscrupulous methods for it). Just like us Indians, they too seem to believe that their lives will become better once they leave their home country. In an attempt to assimilate more into the new countries they migrate to, many shun their culture completely by dropping their Nigerian names and adopting names that are easier on the tongue for the Westerners, avoid their traditional cuisine and even pick up a fake accent. This too seems to be in line with what many Indians do when they migrate to a different country.
One of the short stories "Arrangers of Marriage" is about a young woman who is married off to a Nigerian medical student in the US. More than the actual culture shock of moving to the US, she is more surprised and disappointed to see her husband trying to get rid of all his roots (by avoiding their indigenous food to changing the way they speak to avoiding speaking their native language at home to even forsaking his African name to take up a basic English name) just to assimilate better into the American society. That story felt similar to the accounts of many Indian women who go through a similar experience post getting married to men who had just moved abroad.
This is one of the many stories in Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's book in which I observed the stark similarities between Indians and Nigerians. In fact the patriarchal nature of their society and how women are considered beautiful based on how light their skin is also painfully similar to how our society operates.
A fascinating collection of stories, this book is a fairly easy read and a good starter for this author's books.
Commenti